Monthly Archives: June 2016

I wrote all of Ossuary and released it with my partner as the first project of Future Proof Games. It’s a little game that’s pixelly and funny and strange. You’re a newcomer to a macabre philosophical underworld, and to escape you have to solve conversation-based puzzles and use sins as inventory items. I used it to explore a lot of Discordian concepts and perspectives, so in a sense it’s a religious work for me.

It’s weird looking back on Ossuary. I’m really proud of how it turned out, although it’s never had real financial success. We’ve sold maybe a couple thousand copies. For now it’s paying Future Proof’s monthly expenses for servers and such, but it’s certainly not making enough to provide us with paychecks. Each sale on Steam helps a bit, though, so if you haven’t picked up the game, check it out! It’s cheap! (And hey, if you know someone you think will like Ossuary, you can always get it for them as a gift!)

And a final request: if you have played Ossuary, please do leave a Steam review. Our 17 reviews are 94% positive, but Steam won’t list them as “Very Positive” or “Overwhelmingly Positive” until we have enough of them. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that these categories make folks more likely to check out an otherwise-unknown game.

Screenshot of Hyper Light Drifter from Steam user 芊一.Hyper Light Drifter, from Heart Machine1, is an inscrutable game: one which presents you with various mysteries and challenges, inviting you to overcome them, but doesn’t bother guiding you along that path. It’s part of a new trend in so-called “retro-inspired” games that recontextualizes the challenge and low fidelity of console game from the 1980s as intentional, stylistic choices. Because of these choices, it has limited accessibility but provides a specific mood and emotional journey that would be difficult to evoke in a more populist game.

About

Ludus Novus is a podcast and accompanying blog by Gregory Avery-Weir dedicated to interactive art, including interactive fiction, digital games, and roleplaying. Here, I explore how we can take interactive art beyond just empty entertainment.